Is this what it’s like to get old? (Video game edition)

I’m not even talking about that one muscle in my lower back that pops on a semi-regular basis (I swear I’ll start stretching real soon now). And it’s not that I don’t follow pop music that closely anymore and don’t even recognize a lot of contemporary artists.

I mean, the music thing is somewhat related to getting older, as music trends shift from generation to generation. My musical tastes were locked in before rap or hip hop hit the mainstream, for example, so I never really adopted either, though I enjoy certain some of it, the same way I can enjoy some country music before running screaming from the room.

No, this is about something I grew up with, still enjoy, but has changed dramatically in ways that I am ever-increasingly out of touch with.

Video games.

Although technically not the first video game, Pong was the first mainstream game, one that the public could actually play. It came out in 1972, when I was 8 years old. By the time I had an Atari 2600 in 1980, I was the ripe old age of 16. This is to point out that while my earliest experience with video games was when they were in their infancy, I still pretty much grew up with them. I had most of the home consoles and would spend hours at the arcades in Duncan and Victoria. My first full-time job was at an arcade.

Through the 1980s I endured the video game crash, then moved to computer games over home consoles. My Commodore 64, purchased in 1984, was mostly a gaming machine (I did use it to write, too–the word processor I had could create documents up to about four pages long, which taught me brevity, if nothing else). The C64 gave way to more advanced computers like the Atari 520ST and Amiga 500 before I finally went PC in 1994.

I came back to home consoles with the original Xbox in 2002 and have had an Xbox model ever since (admittedly, the Xbox One serves more as a media center for me than as a video game unit), but continued to play computer games, going online in a big way in 1998 when I got my first broadband connection.

I cut my multiplayer teeth on games like Quake, Unreal Tournament and Tribes. I explored mods, joined a gaming group (clan/tribe) and experienced the joy of piling onto a sever with friends and blasting away for bragging rights on the scoreboard at the end of a match. We eventually ran weekly competitions on our own servers. It was fun and it went on for multiple years before marriage, kids and life in general cut into our gaming time.

So that’s part of it–the group I gamed with scattered and there was no natural replacement. Although I had a persistent connection, my online gaming was mostly coop with a friend or two in games like Diablo II or a coop shooter. I went small.

I went big again, in a manner of speaking, in the middle of the first decade of the 20th century, playing MMOs like Everquest 2, City of Heroes and, of course, World of Warcraft. The clan was back and for a time we all played together again before inevitably drifting apart. But the gaming experience was still pretty free-form. We’d log in and do some quests, or if we had a big enough group, a dungeon. We’d get our loot, be happy (for a moment) and log off.

Today some of these MMOs still exist, but I am not playing them. The games I grew up with are mostly gone, though some, like Quake, still weirdly exist in some form. But when you look at games today, there are things I see that were never part of the games of yore I played:

  • The season pass. We used to get free expansion packs from companies like Epic, or sometimes a paid expansion pack. A game might see one or two and they’d be released a year or more after the game. Now we have season passes, which are basically paid content dribbled out over a specified period of time and is often ready at game launch–meaning the content has been built alongside the game specifically to be a paid extra.
  • The general concept of seasons. Diablo 3 has seasons. A season has specific rewards and runs for a limited time. Almost every online shooter now offers seasons of varying lengths, enticing players to keep logging in to keep getting newer, shinier rewards. It’s GAAS–Gaming As A Service. And it kind of gives me gas.
  • Unlockables. There was a little of this back in the olden days, but in a game like Quake, the best players ruled, not just due to superhuman eye-hand coordination, but because they learned the maps, particularly with regard to the placement of weapons and power-ups. Everything was there for the taking, nothing prevented N00bGam3r from getting the rocket launcher, except for L33tBro knowing the fastest route to it and grabbing it first. Today, many games will give players a few basic weapons and require them to hit certain achievements to unlock others. The achievements can be anything–time played, kills, and so on. If you start playing a game well after launch, you will be playing on servers filled with players who have unlocked nearly everything, while you have to rely on your meager skill to survive long enough to get something better. But then there’s always…
  • Pay to Win (PTW). Want a snazzy, powerful weapon? Is it worth $5 in real money to you? Maybe more? Buy it and boom, instant power! Fortunately, most games aren’t doing this much now, but it was definitely a thing for awhile. Games like Fortnite (you may have heard of it) now give away the game and generate revenue through cosmetics–charging the player to add new costume bits and skins. And it works! It’s hard to get upset about, because if you don’t care about the frippery, you can play the game for free.
  • Streaming. A lot of people don’t even play games anymore–they watch other people play, with “witty” commentary. On the one hand, I kind of get this–it’s like TV, but somewhat less passive–but on the other, watching someone else play a game is just weird. At least it saves on developing carpal tunnel.

All of these things add up to an online gaming experience that feels very different than what I was used to ten or–gah–even 20 years ago. I’m not sure I would ever be comfortable jumping into a multiplayer game today, unless it was built around coop. It feels like the gaming scene has changed, but I haven’t, and I want to go back to playing weird UT levels, but UT is pretty much dead.

I am old.

An early case of the bluhs

After a bunch o’ posts yesterday I find my brain frozen once again, unable to come up with something to focus on and write about after a day in which my brain was subjected to intense frazzling. But here I am writing anyway, because not writing results in…well, nothing being written. And one needs to write to improve one’s writing.

Here, then is a haiku on the bluhs, which are a variant on the blahs.

On the bluhs

The bluhs in winter
They will try to bring you down
Resolve with Pop-Tarts

I’m not sure Pop-Tarts can solve the bluhs, but I might be willing to try.

Review: Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel

Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Save the Cat series of books is aimed primarily at screenwriters, but in this case Jessica Brody has reworked the formula for novel writing.

The book, as befits one concerned about plot, is well-structured, with sections designed for easy reference after the initial read-through. At its core, Brody puts forward that there are 10 core plots that are used in pretty much all successful stories (note that this success is oriented toward readers more than critics, hence the inclusion of novels that have received what some might call unkind reviews, such as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code.

In the first chapter Brody describes how we are wired to respond to certain types of stories and covers the usual concerns over “How can I be daring and original if I’m following a strict plot outline?” by saying nothing is really original, but all authors have their own voices and style that separate them from other writers.

The next ten chapters are devoted to an explanation of the specific plot type, covering three essential requirements for each, followed by a “beat sheet” (beats are a big thing in the Save the Cat world) for a specific novel, explaining how it conforms to the particular plot type in question. This is followed by an even more precise summary of the beat sheet, handy for quick reference.

The final chapter is a general set of common questions Brody has addressed in related workshops, along with answers, ranging from the basics of “Where do I start?” to handling multiple narratives. Brody also provides templates on a website that serve as virtual corkboards for plotting (for those who don’t want to use actual corkboards). In all, the information is detailed, but presented in a light, informal style that will be easily accessible to young or new writers, as well as those who have yet to plot their way out of the proverbial wet paper bag.

You can get an idea of the tone of the book by observing some of the plot types discussed:

  • Whydunnit
  • Dude with a Problem
  • Buddy Love
  • Monster in the House

All of this may sound very rigid–and it is. Brody does allow that some bending of the rules may be allowed, but that overall these plots, their associated acts, scenes, and overall beats, must be followed to achieve the effect they are meant to have on that primitive part of our brain that responds so well to structured tales.

If you believe in the power of plotting, this is an excellent primer on how to write a novel using any of the ten specific plots discussed. As Brody mentions, it also works well for those trying to fix a work in progress.

For new writers or those who have a tendency to send their initially sound novels upon the rocky shoals of “I don’t know what happens next”, this is recommended.

P.S. “Save the cat” is a reference to how an unlikable main character should do something to show they have a good side or some merit, such as…saving a cat.

View all my reviews

Run 646: Technically running

Run 646
Average pace: 6:08/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Start: 11:49 am
Distance: 5.02 km
Time: 30:49
Weather: Cloudy
Temp: 7ºC
Humidity: 66%
Wind: strong
BPM: 162
Weight: 169.8 pounds
Total distance to date: 4840 km
Devices: Apple Watch Series 5, iPhone 8
Shoes: Saucony Switchback ISO (200 km)

Although I have run and done many walks on the treadmill since acquiring it in early December 2019, it’s been awhile since I’ve done a run outdoors. A large chunk of this has been due to having the flu and then almost immediately getting a cold as follow up.

Today I finally headed back to Burnaby Lake for the first time since December 29th, just over two months ago. Yikes.

The weather was a bit brisk (in fact, three degrees cooler than it was in late December) so I wore two layers, which was a smart choice, especially with a somewhat strong breeze also blowing.

I started out slow to keep myself from tiring out quickly, but that turned out to be a formality, as slow is the only speed I could achieve. The back half of the run felt not exactly like a slog, but slog-like. I kept moving. I was glad when it was over. I surprised myself by actually finding the energy to run a bit afterwards on the way back home.

The pace of 6:08/km is very slow but unsurprising, given the long layoff. Oddly, my BPM remained exactly the same as the last run, a bit up there at 162 but well below a level that I would be uncomfortable with. I did not think about my knees at all during the run and only thought of them briefly on the walk out as I felt the entirety of both legs start to stiffen and get sore in real time.

I expect the soreness to persist through tomorrow.

The trail itself was mostly dry, but sections are still in terrible shape, with parts collapsed and marked by traffic cones, others hastily patched up and the usual boggy parts by the fields requiring fancy footwork to avoid the feet getting mud and water-soaked.

Because it was the weekend and not raining, a decent number of people were out. One dog was kind of snippy toward me and another jogger. I didn’t notice so much because the music blocked out its yapping and it was low enough to be mostly out of my field of vision. I did turn back and see it going after the jogger that passed me in the other direction. Dumb dog (owner).

As always when you encounter multiple groups of people on the trail, some seem unaware that others are in fact using the trail, too. Fortunately I never had too much trouble moving around them, but the baffling inability handle interaction with others in a public space will always continue to annoy me. I try to not let it, but it does.

A mystery of sorts emerged just as I was heading out from the lake. My right hip suddenly became sore. It felt fine on the run and the 5K walk out of the lake, so I’m not sure why it turned on me long after the fact. Maybe it’s a trick hip now. I don’t like tricks. It seems mostly fine now.

Overall, this was not a bad run after more than 60 days off. I was tired, but never felt gross and wanting the suffering to end like nothing else in the world. I just kept going and going and then was done. I’ll try to run again next weekend and see how it compares.

Lousy Smarch weather

Actually, it’s pretty nice out right now, if a bit cool, I just wanted to get the ball rolling for posting in March and went with a random Simpsons reference.

February shmebruary

This month started out with a fizzle, but is ending on a mostly better note, or series of notes:

  • My weight is down. Yay.
  • I am exercising again. Also yay.
  • I think I’m sleeping better in general.
  • My writing is…well, more on that below.
  • Work is [redacted]

On the poop side of things, my writing has gained no traction at all, whether it be fiction or this blog. I fell way behind on my usual one-post-per-day average, just as I did last month, and despite a few posts today, I will still come up short, unless I post ten haikus or something. I’m pretty sure I won’t do that.

I have also fallen behind on my modest reading goal this year. To meet it, I need to read a book every two weeks. To date I have read three this year, so I’m one behind. This is due to a combination of wanting to veg out during my commute and often not getting a seat because the [redacted for adult language] SkyTrain car will be standing room only at 6:30 in the [redacted] morning. It’s insane. I get on at the fourth stop on the Expo line. After my stop, Sapperton, there are 16 more. I’m pretty sure it’s SRO by the second station, Lougheed. It’s silly. Does everyone work in downtown Vancouver? Yes. Yes, they do.

For the writing, I’m not sure what to say. I think about it, sometimes I start, but nothing much happens. The latest book on writing (I’ve read oodles of them now) has the author assert there is no such thing as writer’s block and technically that’s true. Unless you are in a coma or otherwise physically incapable, you can always write if you have some time. So it’s not that I can’t write, I just don’t. And I’m not entirely sure why, because I’ve read some of my stuff recently and while I’m not trying to toot my horn (heh heh), I quite like some of it and think I should write more.

And maybe I will. Soon. I do actually have some additional thoughts on this and will spill them out of my head in another post.

(I’m not talking about work on a public blog. You’ll need the key to my heart diary to find out more about that.)

Treadmill walk: Day 4 of more

I wasn’t sure I was going to do a workout today. It’s Saturday and without a run scheduled (I’m doing one tomorrow) the default is to be a bit on the lazy side. I did do a fair bit of walking and actually hit both my exercise and move goals by late afternoon. But still, I wanted to get a little more…

So at 9 p.m. (yes, my earliest time this week yet!) I got on the treadmill and did 30 minutes at the usual settings.

I definitely felt perkier starting but with about five minutes to go my arms started feeling like spaghetti (this may sound weird, since you run with your legs, not your arms, but the speed and inclination I use on the treadmill for my walks requires me to hold on to avoid flying off) and my legs even felt just slightly wobbly. But I persisted and finished and as you can see by the stats below, I improved a bit in every area, especially in BPM. This is good and I am pleased.

Tomorrow: Running. Outside. Yikes.

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:21/km (9:27 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30.03)
Distance: 3.21 km (3.18 km)
Calories burned: 302 (299)
BPM: 138 (144)

February 2020 weight loss report: Down 0.9 pounds

It’s a Christmas miracle in February!

But not really. I shall explain.

The good news is that I am indeed down 0.9 pounds for the month vs. where I was at the end of January, and I did it with two fewer days in the month, too. Not only that, it also means I’m 2-2 for the year to date, which is pretty good for the winter “eat everything you can get your hands on” months.

There are a few caveats, though. The main one is that I weighed myself around 9:30 in the morning, about fours later than normal and this typically means I will weight less, due to the way my body processes food. Now, it’s true I might have weighed more anyway if I’d eaten a box of donuts before stepping on the scales, but fortunately I did not do that (I did break my donut rule, though–see below).

The other caveat–though that’s not precisely the right word here–is that my body fat has been climbing of late. In part this is expected, as you can shed weight faster than the overall body fat of your body, meaning that you can go down in weight, but the overall percentage of your now-thinner body that is fat actually increases (temporarily) and that’s where I’m at now.

Anyway, I ate a giant jelly donut yesterday (they were a special end of month treat at work), was trending up in weight for the last three days and still went down, so I’m sticking to Christmas miracle in February.

February 1: 171.5 pounds
February 29: 169.6 pounds (down 0.9 pounds)

Year to date: From 171.8 to 169.6 pounds (down 2.2 pounds)

And the body fat:

February 1: 21.6% (36.7 pounds of fat)
February 29: 21.9% (37.2 pounds of fat) (up 0.5 pounds)

Treadmill walk: Third time is not the charm

Yes, for a ridiculous third night in a row, I jumped on the treadmill for a 30 minute workout. I started even earlier tonight–just before 10 p.m.

But today was physically tiring (a little) and mentally tiring (a lot), so I wasn’t feeling as peppy as last night. The results clearly show this.

Also, my finger slipped a bit on the button that controls the incline, so I had it set to 11 instead of 10 for about the first 20 minutes. This may have slowed me down a bit more than otherwise. But I was still just slow.

Still, I’m glad I did it, as exercising is now becoming a routine again, which is where I want it. I am planning to actually run outside for the first time in a hundred years this weekend. Both days currently look amendable, so I may flip a coin–as soon as I find one.

The stats, with last night’s results in brackets. Note how terrible the pace is. Even my best km at 9:19/km was still slower than my overall pace last night. The tank was clearly empty tonight. On the other hand, I burned more calories–because I put on more than a pound of weight overnight. 😛

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 11 (20 minutes), 10 (10 minutes)

Pace: 9:27/km (9:14 km/h)
Time: 30:03 (30.04)
Distance: 3.18 km (3.25 km)
Calories burned: 299 (288)
BPM: 144 (143)

Another late night walk in the…room

For an amazing second night in a row I decided to do a workout on the treadmill. I started out a bit pokey (maybe the music was distracting me?) but picked up the pace for the second and third km, and overall felt much peppier than before. Unsurprisingly, my BPM was also higher, but still not too high.

As a special treat (??) I changed the incline from 10 to 12 for the last two minutes. My heart rate immediately jumped by about four, then started settling back down. I could actually feel the increase in the incline, which was a little weird. The treadmill goes up to 15, so 12 is getting pretty steep.

Stats, with the previous workout in brackets:

Speed: 6.5 km/h
Incline: 10

Pace: 9:14/km (9:17 km/h)
Time: 30:04 (30.08)
Distance: 3.25 km (3.24 km)
Calories burned: 288 (294)
BPM: 143 (139)